California Stands up for Children of Farmworkers, Lifts Key Barrier to Education

Provision in California State Budget, passed yesterday, now exempts farmworker families from “50-mile rule” interrupting school year

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Thousands of schoolchildren are celebrating the passage of the state budget because it creates a new exemption to the oppressive “50-mile rule” that previously forced them to change schools twice each year, a barrier to getting an education.

The exemption was sponsored in
Sacramento by Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.),
a food justice organization that addresses inequities in the food system,
and The Center for Farmworker Families,
a nonprofit improving the lives of farmworker families. Assemblymember Anna M.
Caballero (D-Salinas) authored the exemption, which became California Law.

A regulation of the California
Department of Housing and Community Development requires farmworkers to leave
state-subsidized housing provided to migrant labor, and move at least 50 miles
away, in order to be eligible for housing the following year. The law is a
relic of a time when migrant workers were primarily young, single men – but
today, the state’s agricultural workers are a vastly different demographic, and
include families with approximately 3,500 children, according to research by
Kaveh Danesh, economics PhD candidate at UC Berkeley studying poverty and
inequality.

Children’s education is grievously
interrupted each time they are forced to move. Families eligible for housing in
the state’s 24 housing centers were obligated to leave their school districts
in November, two months into the K-12 academic year, and return in May near the
end of the year, often too late for standardized testing. This disruption
“contributes to academic failure and a persistent cycle of poverty,” according
to Dr. Ann López, executive director of the Center for Farmworker
Families.

“Mexican American children of
farmworkers represent the only targeted minority group in the state of
California that is deprived of consistent childhood education,” said López.
“This damaging racist policy has now been corrected.”

“The 50-mile regulation was a violation
of the basic human right of education, and intentionally harmed children of
farmworkers,” said F.E.P. executive director Iauren Ornelas. “The people
who feed all of us sacrifice so much for their
children, and this unfair hardship was an added oppression.”

“Children are the most important
infrastructure program we have, and staying in their schools will contribute to
everyone having a better quality of life,” said Harry Snyder, Advocacy Leader in Residence, UC Berkeley
School of Public Health. “These families have worked for decades so their
children can have the opportunity other kids have. California’s future is
enhanced by these children, who know firsthand that hard work pays off, getting
the education they want.”

“The arbitrary 50-mile rule has long
forced migrant families to move at the end of the agricultural season and take
their children out of school mid-year, causing children to fall behind,” said
Caballero. “Now, after months of working with stakeholders and the
Administration, this wrong has been corrected. School-aged children and their
families will now be allowed to reside at OMS centers year-round, so children
can stay enrolled in the same school. There is no question that education is
vital to a child’s future success. Housing and school stability will allow the
children of migrant farmworkers to focus on their studies and on learning, not
on the anxiety of moving to a new school mid-year.”

The exemption allows for up to half of
all migrant worker housing to be exempt if needed by families with children in
K-12 schools.

The two organizations, which have been
advocating for this change since 2010, wish to thank those who sent letters,
attended protests, called their legislators, contributed research, and wish to
thank farmworkers for their efforts.

The exemption is in effect only until
2024, and will need to be made permanent at that point.

Demonstration outside Department of
Housing & Community Development https://vimeo.com/246644581

About Food Empowerment Project

Food Empowerment Project (http://www.foodispower.org),
founded in 2007, seeks to create a more just and sustainable world by
recognizing the power of one’s food choices. In all of its work, Food
Empowerment Project seeks specifically to empower those with the fewest
resources. Its advocacy areas include fair conditions for farm workers, the
availability of healthy foods in communities of color and low-income areas, the
protection of animals on farms, and conservation of natural resources. A vegan
food justice organization, Food Empowerment Project also works to expose
negligent corporations, such as those that push unhealthy foods into low-income
areas, those that perpetuate food deserts, and those that sell chocolate
derived from the worst forms of child labor. Food Empowerment Project is a
registered non-profit 501(c)(3).

About Center for Farmworker Families

The Center for Farmworker Families (http://www.farmworkerfamily.org)
promotes awareness about the difficult life circumstances of binational
farmworker families while proactively inspiring improvement in binational
family life both in the United States and in Mexico. It promotes the
educational advancement of farm workers and their family members working in
agriculture, as well as family members who are living on their farms of origin
in the west central Mexico countryside. The Center for Farmworker supports
projects in both Mexico and California that sustainably promote financial and
nutritional well-being and independence, and examines federal and state legal
structures that govern the lives and well-being of farmworkers to promote
changes necessary for improved livelihood and well-being.